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Design and Craft News

When blacksmithing is depicted in popular culture, the image tends to be one of brute strength rather than finesse: A male of Wagnerian proportions wields a hammer overhead as veins bulge and sweat drops from his protuberant brow.

We head to San Francisco for this month’s Designer Dailies to visit with Rachel Gant and Andrew Deming of Yield Design. The co-founders met at California College of the Arts, where Gant studied Industrial Design and Deming studied Design Strategy. Gant leads us through a day as they prepare for their first product launch—the Yield Picnic Bag, a nifty bag that unfolds into a picnic blanket.

Interior Design today announced its 2012 inductees into the Hall of Fame, which include Alexandra Champalimaud, Patrick Jouin, Jim Olson and Tom Kundig, and Michael Vanderbyl.
“I’m tremendously excited by this year’s stellar lineup,” said Cindy Allen, editor in chief of Interior Design, which will formally induct the group during the 28th annual Hall of Fame event on November 28th at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. “This group designs the full spectrum and, most importantly, positively impacts lives all over the world.”

More and more, the talented and driven creatives of the CCA community are turning to Kickstarter -- a funding platform for creative projects. We’ve seen more than 20 successful projects on the CCA Kickstarter page, and even more are out there, achieving their goals.

As an award-winning textile artist and longtime professor at the California College of the Arts in Oakland, Berkeley resident Lia Cook admits to a slight bias about the importance of craft to a person's emotional well-being.

"We're a visually oriented culture, one in which other senses aren't emphasized," she says. "But using your hands to make something is part of what it means to be human."

As an award-winning textile artist and longtime professor at the California College of the Arts in Oakland, Berkeley resident Lia Cook admits to a slight bias about the importance of craft to a person's emotional well-being.
"We're a visually oriented culture, one in which other senses aren't emphasized," she says. "But using your hands to make something is part of what it means to be human."

With the opening of "Public Works" at California College of the Arts' new Mark Jensen-designed gallery space, Public Bikes founder Rob Forbes has returned to his design roots, along with a desire to improve city life. More than 400 art and bike enthusiasts turned out for the opening, which featured the works of more than 25 designers and illustrators, including industry heavyweights like Milton Glaser, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast and Michael Schwab.

When Michele Marti rebuilt two Victorian chairs as one, it wasn't just about furniture.
"I was single for so long, I started to notice the gestures of love," says Marti, a 26-year-old upholsterer and designer who lives in Oakland.
She found a large, boxy chair at the Alameda flea market and used a small Japanese hand saw to remove its right arm and part of its base - she then tucked a smaller ornate, rounded chair against it, built their base together and reattached the larger chair's arm to wrap around her. She called it the Lovers.

Does the word laminate conjure images of rippled, split or peeling Formica counters? Yeah, me too. But a group of California College of the Arts students reversed my perception by translating the surface material into fluid, natural and innovative chair designs.